The plan to expand fish habitat has to do with the proposal to build twin water tunnels moving Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta water to Southern California.
A UC Davis study suggests that project as planned could kill a lot of fish. So state and federal water officials are looking at increasing the duration and frequency of flooding in the Yolo Bypass so that fish could live there.
Yolo County Supervisor Jim Provenza points out - that's also where rice and tomatoes are grown.
"The impacts on our agriculture and economy range from minimal if they do a smaller project to catastrophic if they do what's currently on the table."
Provenza says what's currently on the table is a plan to
inundate nearly half of the Yolo Bypass through the planting
season. He says water officials should instead chose a project that
minimizes impacts on existing agriculture.
"As the amount of farmland California shrinks, and it's
shrinking at an alarming rate, our farmland is going to be
increasingly valuable. And we have held the line, unlike other
areas, against loss of farmland."
The Bay Delta Conservation Plan will discuss fishery
enhancement in the Yolo Bypass next month.